Global Innovation Fund

Head of Communications

As Head of Communications, you will lead on telling GIF’s story, and the stories of the entrepreneurs and innovators we support, and the beneficiaries impacted by their innovations, through social media and digital communications. You will formulate and execute proactive corporate communications strategies and press relations, and advise on social media across GIF, and create content to shine a light on the power and potential of innovation for global development.

Telling the story of GIF and our investments externally is inseparable from internal communications. You will ensure that GIF has one face and one voice and that the information we share externally is an authentic representation of how we speak internally.

GIF is powered by evidence. At the core of our communications is explaining and exploring how we measure impact, make choices on the basis of rigorous evidence and learn lessons. Thus collaborating closely with our wonky analytics team is core to your work. You need not be a data jockey yourself, but getting close to this work should excite you and you should demonstrate an aptitude for this.

You will be reporting to our Chief of Staff based in our central London office, but working closely with senior executives in the business and teams across London and Washington DC.

Responsibilities

• Working with the CEO and her staff, you will own GIF’s editorial strategy, turning our stories and lessons learned into tools that support the delivery of our audacious mission. To do this, you will develop content across platforms to tell our story in a dynamic way to audiences across continents, time zones and cultures; • Develop content partnerships with outlets that are aligned with the way GIF operates, including podcast series, news outlets and influencers; • Deliver a communications strategy to support GIF’s impact goals, both in the UK and internationally; • Lead on developing and delivering GIF’s social media content, and advising colleagues across GIF to find their unique voice on social media and digital channels; • Spend your time learning about evidence-based innovation and what it takes to succeed as an innovator and entrepreneur in the countries where we work, and curating those lessons into compelling content for a range of audiences, including policymakers and the public; • Advise on social media in relation to the CEO's office; • Create and maintain relationships with relevant social media influencers, journalists, bloggers and digital community leaders within the international development space, and on key media outlets in the markets in which GIF operates; • Develop and deliver a new online strategy, taking the GIF website from its existing static content to an engaging, multimedia site that better tells the story of GIF and its portfolio; • Create collateral, including annual impact reports and more to tell the GIF story, lessons we learn, and the stories of our partners; • Work with our world-class analytics team to create accessible material to explain how we measure impact and why; • Drive an internal communications function that ensures that we are “one face, one voice” at GIF and that the GIF team understand what we do and why we do it, whatever function they serve; • Manage and maintain a portfolio briefing pack about the innovators GIF supports, including press boilerplates for each innovation and regional portfolios; • Manage and maintain briefings about how GIF uses evidence, generates evidence, and remains a learning organisation; • Help us to embrace failure: we won’t always get everything right, but we are committed to learning every lesson and helping others not to make it, and our comms function has a huge role to play in this; • Help prepare external communications materials and deliver presentation preparation for executives, staff and trustees.

Qualifications The most important qualification is that you love great content and are driven by advancing a mission by telling an organisation’s story. • Extensive and proven social media and digital communications experience, press relations, internal communications. You could come from a PR or a journalism background; • A compelling track record of producing comms materials, and opening doors using these materials, for dynamic and analytic organisations; • Experience working in the innovation space and a demonstrated understanding of how to tell stories from developing countries in a respectful, thoughtful, compelling way; • Web-savvy; you can demonstrate that you will make the GIF website the experience that it needs to be; • You can create materials for an internal audience as well as an external one, to support cohesion, alignment, and message discipline; • A passion for innovation and entrepreneurship, an analytical mind, and an eye for detail.